Tales of Power

The Tonal and the Nagual – Having to Believe

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By / 23 minutes of reading

In this chapter, I met Don Juan in Mexico City, where he appeared in a suit, a deliberate incongruity designed to challenge my perception. He emphasized the warrior’s need for “impeccability” and “humbleness” over self-confidence, asserting that true understanding comes from accumulating personal power rather than seeking convenient explanations. Through the vivid retelling of my dream-control experiences and a symbolic story about two cats, Don Juan introduced the crucial distinction between merely “believing” and “having to believe”—the latter being a warrior’s conscious choice to accept unfathomable realities, particularly the omnipresent nature of death, as a source of power and mystery, exemplified by a dying man we observed in the park.

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The Tonal and the Nagual – The Island of The Tonal

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By / 47 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Don Juan introduces the concepts of “tonal” and “nagual” as the two fundamental aspects of every human being, dispelling my anthropological preconceptions. He explains that the tonal is the “social person,” the organizer of the world, encompassing everything we know, perceive, and can talk about, forming an “island” of our known reality. Conversely, the nagual is the indescribable, unknown part of ourselves, existing “beyond the island,” the source of power and creativity that cannot be grasped by reason but only experienced. Don Juan uses various analogies, like items on a table, to illustrate these abstract concepts, emphasizing that the tonal, though crucial for navigating the world, often becomes a “guard” rather than a “guardian,” suppressing the awareness of the nagual. He stresses that true knowledge lies in recognizing and balancing these two aspects, a challenge for any warrior.

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The Tonal and the Nagual – Shrinking the Tonal

Ancient Cycle, Authors, Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power / By / 26 minutes of reading

In this chapter, Castaneda recounts a disorienting experience in which Don Juan “shrinks” his tonal, causing him to be instantly transported a mile and a half away from an airline office to a bustling market. Don Juan explains this phenomenon as a deliberate manipulation of Castaneda’s tonal—the organizing principle of his known world—by startling it into a state of “shyness” or contraction, thereby allowing the nagual to temporarily take over and perform extraordinary feats. Castaneda struggles to reconcile this inexplicable event with his rational mind, prompting Don Juan to emphasize that such experiences exist beyond the realm of reason and are apprehended only through the body, in what he calls “nagual’s time.” The chapter concludes with Don Juan reiterating the importance of a fluid, balanced tonal for a warrior, and hinting at further explorations of the nagual with Don Genaro.

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The way of the warrior is the harmony between actions and decisions, and then the harmony between the tonal and the nagual

Ancient Cycle, Carlos Castaneda, Nagualism, Stalking, Tales of Power, Tonal island cleansing, Warrior Path / By / 3 minutes of reading

– Write, write,” insisted Don Juan in a friendly tone. – Let’s say your notebook is the only sorcery you have. Tearing it up is one more way of exposing yourself to your fate. It will be one more of

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